Welcome to The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 45, November 4, 2001:
an electronic publication of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
Copyright (c) 2001, The Numismatic Bibliomania Society.
SUBSCRIBER UPDATES
We have two new subscribers this week: Geoff Bell of
Shediac, New Brunswick, and Claud and Judith Murphy,
courtesy of John and Nancy Wilson. Welcome aboard!
Our subscriber count is now 426.
BEISTLE PACKING MATERIALS
American Numismatic Association curator Lawrence Lee writes:
"Regarding Martin Luther Beistle and his book "The Register of
Half Dollar Die Varieties and Sub-Varieties: Aficionados of Beistle
minutia may be interested to learn that the ANA Museum has in its
collection the original metal plates used in printing both the 1929
and 1964 editions of Beistle's book. The plates were a gift from
Aubrey Bebee. Dick Johnson's history of Beistle's paper company
helped explain one of the questions about this donation: the plates
are separated by pieces of cardboard with various Halloween
cut-outs imprinted on them."
[Spooky! -Editor]
JOHN REICH COLLECTORS SOCIETY WEB SITE
The John Reich Collectors Society (JRCS) has a new web
site. From the Society's press release: "The purpose of the
John Reich Collectors Society (JRCS) is to encourage the
study of numismatics, particularly United States gold and
silver coins minted before the introduction of the Seated
Liberty design, and to provide technical and educational
information concerning such coins.
"Since 1986, JRCS has published over 350 original articles
on Federal coinage through their club publication, the John
Reich Journal. A complete listing of all articles published
in the Journal can be found on the new website. ... A list
of books on early Federal coinage, written or edited by
JRCS members also featured. "
The address is http://www.jrcs.org/
CHARLOTTESVILLE CONNECTIONS
John Kraljevich writes: "What fun to see two Charlottesville VA
blurbs in one E-sylum! Heartwood Books is one of many great
bookstores in the area, and I'm pleased to see that the cherrypicks
have started to reappear since I skipped town with a sheepskin
in May 1999. Visitors to town should definitely check out the
UVa stacks too -- nicely bound set of the American Journal of
Numismatics (in addition to hundreds of other volumes, particularly
heavy on South Asian numismatics) is on the circulation shelves,
but you'll have to special request the large paper copy of
Woodward's McCoy sale from an off-site location.
And regarding Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, his dad was one of
Jefferson's original professors at the University and Emmet Hall
(now a first-year dormitory) is named in his memory. Many of
Emmet's papers are preserved in UVa Special Collections, but
who knows what if anything resides therein regarding colonial
currency. Before I read the article I had no idea his son was a
collector! A thoroughly interesting family, it seems."
HISTORY REFERENCE WEB SITE
John and Nancy Wilson of Ocala, FL write: "Great job with
the E-sylum. We enjoy receiving it on Sunday night. The
below site is one of the best sites on the Internet. Kevin Foley
told us about the refdesk.com site which we use all the time.
Readers will be able to almost find anything regarding history.
The majority of our numismatic hobby in some way has
something to do with past history. Here is the site:
http://www.refdesk.com/history.html"
MASON'S PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY
Bill Malkmus writes: "I ran across a one-page thing in an old
(August 1967, p. 630) World Coins magazine (now defunct)
headed "Early US Collectors Photograph." It's about a large
photo, titled "Mason's Photographic Gallery of the Coin
Collectors of the United States No. 1" with some 48 oval
cameo portraits numbered and identified below.
The caption reads: "A rare early photograph showing 48 of
the U. S.' leading early numismatists, probably produced by
Philadelphia coin dealer E. B. Mason Jr. (frame 44) in
1867-1869 was recently uncovered by New York City
professional numismatist Aaron Feldman. Such notables are
shown as Joseph J. Mickley (frame 1) of Philadelphia,
America's first known coin collector; Matthew W. Dickeson,
Philadelphia (frame 2); William J. Jenks, Philadelphia (frame
7); Captain John W. Haseltine, Philadelphia (frame 20);
James A. Bolen, Springfield, Mass. (frame 23), and others.
The photo (possibly unique) was stolen in 1859 and remained
unknown until 1967."
Idle questions which come to mind are: Have any reprints
been made of this photo that anyone knows about? and was
there ever any follow-up with a "No. 2," etc.?"
[This photo has been written up before, but I'll let one of
our E-Sylum readers bring us up to date. -Editor]
COHEN VOLUMES ONLINE
Bill continues: "In another vein -- I resisted commenting on
updates as Cohen's vol. 2 and vol. 3 came on line, but now
Jérôme Mairat has Cohen's volumes 1 through 4 on line
(Pompey (67 BC) up through Maximus (AD 238)) at:
http://www.i-numis.com/books/index.html
Also available for collectors of ancients are: John Yonge
Akerman, A Manual of Roman Coins (1865), 78 pages,
21 plates and various 19th-c. articles by Babelon, Gnecchi,
Imhoff-Blumer, and others."
NUMISMATIC RESEARCH AND ACCESSING ORIGINAL MATERIAL.
Dick Johnson writes: "This is in answer to Carl Honore's
lament in the October 28th E-Sylum that all the archives of
numismatic interest are in the East and he is in the Pacific
Northwest:
(1) BE DEDICATED. Recognize that the archives are not
going to come to you. You must go to them. Research is expensive,
in both time and money. Part of that cost is travel. If you cannot
take a sabbatical from your job for the time off to research,
consider vacation time. Otherwise you are going to have to wait
until you retire for the time required to do your numismatic
research activities.
A professional man I know is looking forward to his retirement,
a few months away, to research Lifesaving Medals. He had
planned this in advance and did as much homework ahead of
time as possible. He will now have the resources to do this
chore unencumbered by calendar or checkbook problems.
True the archives are not distributed with geographical equality:
Some things in life are not fair. You must go to them. I
remember talking with a researcher from England. He came to
America to research at the library of the American Numismatic
Society. I asked why.
"You have the greatest collection of numismatic books in one
room right here," he said. Perhaps he had been to other libraries
where the works were scattered. We are fortunate to have
these national numismatic treasures nearby. Others have
traveled great distances to access these.
(2) HONE YOUR RESEARCH TRAITS. I have mentioned
this before in E-Sylum: join a local genealogy club. You will
learn resources and techniques that you never knew before.
Also there is probably more resources in your area than you
may be aware.
I have been writing and researching in numismatics since
college days. Gad, that's almost fifty years. I thought I knew
how to research. But the little ol' grandmothers in my genealogy
club sometimes run circles around me. They have taught me a
lot, and are very willing to impart the knowledge and
techniques they often learned the hard way.
They also have contacts that are unbelievable. Last month we
took a field trip to Boston. At the Massachusetts State
Archives (next door to the Kennedy Archives) we had a
speaker who was a friend of one of our members and she
pulled out documents and passed them around that, she
said, she would do for no other group. We also visited the
New England Historic and Genealogical Society. Five floors
of pure research pleasure, books and manuscripts.
(3) ASK FOR HELP. It is amazing what you can get from
others. Often a polite inquiry will provide more data than you
can imagine. We are presently living in a society of tremendous
information available; others often have this and are willing to
give you what you want, if you only ask.
Case in point: I was working on early U.S. Mint technology.
Became friends with Craig Sholley, who had done a great
deal of this work before me. He had found the Peale Report
of 1835 at the Philadelphia National Archives and photocopied
the entire Report.
Franklin Peale was the mechanical genius, you may recall, who
was hired by the U.S. Mint and sent by Director Samuel Moore
to tour the mints of Europe and report his findings. Here they
are on 272 legal size pages, in Peale's own hand. (This led to
the introduction of the steam press for coining and the engraving
pantograph for making dies at the Philadelphia Mint.)
Craig was kind enough to photocopy his set and send these
to me. In turn, I transcribed much of the Report (with the aid
of a consenting wife who is better at deciphering difficult
handwriting than I). Even so, it required another trip to the
Philadelphia National Archives for both of us to solve some
remaining problems by pouring over the original.
(4) LAST POINT, DREAM! Create in your mind what you
would like to do if you had all the resources you needed. My
dream is a mobile home to travel and park in the lots of
archives and museums of America. Meaningful research does
not happen in one or two days. It often requires weeks. You
have to learn what is available, how it is arranged, how to use
it, the rules and requirements of the institution (like using those
damn white gloves!), then immerse yourself. It is best if you
can do this research in solid chunks of time rather than numerous
one-day visits.
For research on early American die sinkers, I need to search
city directories from a large number of cities. Fortunately,
the largest collection of these is at the American Antiquarian
Society, in Worcester, Massachusetts, about a two-hour
drive for me. But I would rather stay in a motor home parked
nearby and visit this archive day-after-day for as long as it
takes to search these directories. (I dream this, in preference
to staying in hotels or motels, for the time needed to stretch
my research travel budget.)
Incidentally, despite the largest collection of city directories
in America at AAS, they are available to researchers only
on microfilm. Get used to using these machines and pouring
over the gray-glow screens for hours. If you can prove a
page is missing or damaged in the film they may retrieve the
original (if they have it) to let you examine it. So crank the
ol' microfilm machines (or, if you ar lucky, use the new
motorized ones)).
Now, Carl, what can you do before you retire to advance
numismatics by your as yet unfound discoveries? Contact
local museums and offer your numismatic expertise to
catalog their holdings. You will have to prove your
qualifications to the curator. But you will find this fulfilling
and you might make one of those discoveries in your own
backyard.
Also search out microfilm available for interlibrary loan; I
found a journal of die sinkers in the Scovill archives at the
Baker Library at Harvard. In this case I had to pay to
have the microfilm made (since no researcher before me
had examined it), but once this was done I could use this
at my local library who saw that it was returned to Baker
Library after I was done with it (that was their requirement).
Last words, Carl: Dream! then Go!
P.S. Researching in all these institutions has started me
gathering a new collectable: the photocopy machine debit
cards. Unlike credit cards these plastic chits are rather
plain. However, I predict these are the "provisionals" and
future ones will have more elaborate and colorful designs,
a different one for each institution. Even in their present
state, however, they are more meaningful to researchers
than those innocuous plastic phone cards that are used
by the public (and collected by phonocardiographies)."
SUBSCRIBER PROFILE: GEOFF BELL
New subscriber Geoff Bell writes: "I got your name from Paul
Petch of Toronto. I have had a lifelong interest in numismatic
literature and Canadian history books. My primary interest in
numismatics is Maritime banknotes (chartered), Canadian tokens
and medals, both historical and modern. Phil Carrigan has also
mentioned your organization to me on occasion."
FEATURED WEB SITE
This week's featured web site is the New York Clearing House.
"The New York Clearing House is the nation's first and largest
bank clearing house. We continue to play a key role in
developing the U.S. banking system. In 1853, we helped
simplify the chaotic exchange and settlement process among
the banks of New York City.
Before the Federal Reserve System was established in 1913,
the Clearing House stabilized currency fluctuations and carried
the monetary system through recurring times of panic. Since
then, we have applied our organizational talent and
technological innovation to meet the demands of the rapidly
evolving payments industry and challenging regulatory
environment."
http://www.nych.org/hist.htmhttp://www.nych.org/files/nych_hist.pdf
The second link is a three-page paper (in Adobe format)
outlining the history of the Clearing House, which mentions
clearing house certificates. These certificates were issued
during the financial panics of 1873, 1893 and 1907, and
functioned for a time as a circulating medium of exchange.
The article also states that clearing house certificates were
first used in the panic of 1857. Are any such notes extant?
Wayne Homren
Numismatic Bibliomania Society

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Numismatic Bibliomania Society.

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